Church recruits area youth to attend Chicago evangelism conference

Thursday

Feb 7, 2013 at 8:02 PMFeb 8, 2013 at 10:54 AM

Spaghetti dinner to raise money for trip and for community-wide youth ministry re-build

Karen Botakaren.bota@sentinel-standard.com

A downtown Ionia church with a heart for helping young people share their faith is enlisting high schoolers to travel to an evangelism conference in Chicago in the spring. The youth group from Zion United Methodist Church and its leaders are planning a spaghetti supper Sunday to raise money for the trip.

The dinner will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday at Zion. For the cost of $7 per person, $12 per couple or $20 per family, attendees will enjoy spaghetti with meat or meatless sauce, green beans and pudding. Cooks for the event will be two youth group members, Kayla Wireman and Conner Arnold.

The spaghetti dinner is one of the group's major fundraisers for the Dare 2 Share evangelism conference, this year scheduled for April 12-13, said youth group leader Andria Hunt, who attended for the first time when she was a student.

Dare 2 Share includes live bands, dramas, talks by Greg Stier and mission work. Hunt had the opportunity to go door-to-door in a Chicago neighborhood collecting nonperishable food items for families in need, and along the way to share her faith with those she encountered.

"It was an amazing experience. It showed me what faith can do in your life and the importance of standing fully for your faith," she said. "It helped me and helped my fellow students to understand what it means to be Christian."

The church has been sending teens from Zion but also from across the community for about 10 years to experience the "intense training" that happens at Dare 2 Share, said the church's youth program coordinator, Denise Epps. This year, the church is expanding its youth program and including other churches' youth groups.

"(Zion's) Community Youth Vision exists to reach out to area youth coming together to praise God and teach them to serve his people," Epps said. "The issue for young people in smaller churches is that they have their 'pod,' but when they go to school they are afraid of rejection and afraid to live by their values and vision. When they realize there is this larger group of people, it gives them more confidence to walk out their values and beliefs."

Epps added that adolescence is a time when youth are looking to find themselves, and they can be "beaten down" when the world does not recognize their belief system.

"They are confused, and a lot of kids are without hope," she said. "A large community of Christian believers can give them confidence, security and hope."

Epps said the church has no budget for the youth group, so the ministry does the spaghetti dinner to raise funds for programming like the Dare 2 Share trip. Between 20 and 40 youth have gone each year, and this year, because of the expanded outreach of Community Youth Vision, there could be more.

"Many kids can't afford the $70 it costs to go and stay at the conference," she said "We don't want anyone turned away because of finances. We definitely want any child in high school, or in middle school who is dealing with the same issues of peer pressure and bullying, to be able to go."

Epps said Community Youth Vision will have more events coming up, and she is hoping the community will see more of them.

"We're really branching out, and we are trying to be absolutely welcoming to other youth groups who would like to join us," she said.

For more information about Dare 2 Share, visit www.dare2share.org. For more information about Community Youth Vision or Zion United Methodist Church, call 616-527-1910. The church is located at 423 W. Washington St. in Ionia.